Marilyn Manson’s party at Life for his memoir The Long Hard Road out of Hell-brought out a scary batch of ghoulish creatures, most of them TV reporters. Just sitting there with those glazed eyeballs, wacky Marilyn managed to push a few more buttons and sell a bunch more merch. His glum demeanor was in fascinating contrast to the perkiness of his dressed-in-white escort, actress Rose McGowan, a cutie who greets you with, “Hi, Sugar! I Love your shirt!” I congratulated Rose for holding her own against sardonic Craig Kilborn on The Daily Show, and she said-perkily-”He’s an asshole! And that was my first talk show!” As sure as Diana Ross shouldn’t have worn those extensions on the Motown special, it won’t be her last. In another corner, the more seasoned Janeane Garofalo had her own ideas. “When Marilyn and Rose make out,” she said, “can you imagine the gigantic mess of makeup all over the pillows? And the fight for the bathroom afterwards?”

Hoping for some contour tips, I nabbed a quickie chat with Marilyn and found that he actually seems pretty nice-just a regular guy who claims to be Satan. I asked him how he feels about upsetting Rosie O’Donnell so much. “I think she envies my figure,” he said, with a mild snarl. “Also, I turned her down on a sexual proposition.” Why wasn’t he jumping up and down with joy at this promo party? “This is too crazy”, Marilyn said. “It’s like culture shock. I’ve been holed up.” In a crypt probably. I was going to ask if he gets tired of defending himself, but then a news reporter pushed in and asked him to defend himself. Meanwhile, McGowan wondered-perkily- if I’m the one who wrote “Every Day’s Halloween for Rose McGowan.” She seemed irked, which was strange considering she dates an amalgam of their entire Addams family. “No”, I said, “I called you feisty”, which made the ‘lil pixie happy again. But Neil Strauss, the Voicer-turned-Timeser who cowrote Marilyn’s book, looked permanently stunned. “I definitely got a lot more than I expected (from the experience)”, he said. “I probably realized this in Marilyn’s hotel one morning at 4 a.m., wearing a blond wig and staring at a bottle of wine, two unidentifiable blue pills, and a nose hair trimmer.”